nary existence. as comprehended in one fublime imagiexistence. The firft idea undoubtedly occurred first to the poet, and might produce the fecond, which was probably what he meant to convey to the reader. The metaphor in this line, And read their history, &c.' though confiderably removed from fimplicity, does not seem to violate propriety: the emotions of the mind are, it is well known, visible to a certain degree in the countenance; and by a long established mode of speech, which exchanges a general for a specifick term, instead of saying we perceive, we say we read them. The Author then had not paffed the bounds of custom, in suppofing of patriots or heroes, that they read admiration or reverence in the eyes of a nation; but he but he goes further, and, by a metonymy of effect for caufe, fuppofes that they read there, the history of those actions, for which they are admired or revered. To illuftrate his fentiment by example, were eafy; the late Duke Duke of Cumberland, after the battle of Culloden, and the late Earl of Cha tham at the close of the war, 1763, must have been beheld with fuch obvious gratitude, that they might be faid to read their history in a nation's eyes.' It is worthy observation, that the circumstance which Gray has thus dignified, and reprefented as glorious and enviable, Pope has degraded, and endeavoured to render an object of contempt: One felf-approving hour whole years outweighs, Gray's expreffion, it may be faid, involves the whole publick; the most respectable part of it the opulent and intelligent, as well as the vulgar; Pope alludes only to the latter. But that Pope's fentiments of popularity, even with the higher ranks of mankind, were not not very favourable, his Effay on Man, in another place, fufficiently demonftrates: And more true joy Marcellus exil'd feels, The people of all claffes are indeed fo variable in their opinions, fo prompt extravagantly to applaud, and capriciously to cenfure, that a popular man may fairly confider his reputation as a cloud before the wind, perpetually varying its form, now increafing, now diminishing, and at length dispersed in air. Forbad to wade through slaughter to a throne, The image of wading through blood, has no great claim to novelty; but it is introduced with dignity and propriety. There is fufficient analogy between him who fhould literally wade through blood to a throne, throne confidered as alocal eminence; and him by whofe command blood is shed, in order for his obtainment of political fuperiority. The image in the next line is equally grand and appofite; a tyrant's inflexibility, could not, perhaps, have been described with more force, than by faying he shut the gates of mercy on man• kind.' Or heap the fhrine of Luxury and Pride, The metaphors here are common, but they are not unpleafingly applied. The Mufe's flame kindles incenfe;' that is, Poetical genius offers flattery at the shrine of Luxury and Pride. Shrine, by a bold licentia poetica, is here substituted for altar. Dr. Johnson defines a shrine, a cafe in which fomething facred is repo• fited;' a fhrine confequently cannot properly be faid to be heaped at all, and much less properly with incense; an altar altar is the place appropriated to that material.* The Mufe's flame here mentioned, has not, however, very often kindled the incense which has heaped the altars of Luxury and Pride; Poetry has had little concern with the volumes of rhyming praise that have iffued from the press; Dryden's adulatory pieces, fome of them at least, excepted. Mafon, in one of his Elegies, has finely characterized that Author, and with a metaphor lefs common and more beautiful than Gray's, has reprefented him as crowning the fubjects of his applaufe with jewels : If POPE through friendship fail'd, indignant view, On titled rhymers and inglorious kings. See from the depths of his exhauftless mine, • With our minor Poets and Poeteffes, the words fane, fhrine, altar, &c. are perpetually in use, and are as perpetually mifapplied and confounded by them. As |